eBay reviews
What users love and hate, from real reviews
An auction-driven marketplace with an enormous catalog and a devoted base of long-time users, which those same users describe as slowly rotting under broken search, forced AI, an intrusive Live feed, and brutal seller fees.
What users love
An enormous catalog: "find anything you could ever want"
The core reason long-timers stay: eBay genuinely has everything — childhood retro games, stamps, cards, car parts, surgical instruments, items you can't find anywhere else. It's a one-of-a-kind resale market where you compare price and quality in one place.
has everything and anything you could ever want.
Now I'm able to find things here that I can't find anywhere else.
I FOUND THE SYSTEM, AN HDMI CONVERTER, ALL THE GAMES I HAD & SUM OF THE GAMES I WANTED BACK THEN!
Selling from the phone beats the PC: snap a photo and it's listed
Sellers love the mobility: no more transferring photos from a computer — point, shoot, and the item is in the listing. You can run a whole shop from the app with no PC, and Seller Hub gives data insights and fast payouts.
with the app just point and shoot and it's in the listing.
2026 update, app works brilliantly, run my ebay shop on it and dont need a PC anymore!
The Seller Hub provides amazing data insights, listing is intuitive, and payouts are always fast and reliable.
For loyal users, losing it would be "like losing a limb"
Despite all the negativity, there's a solid core of 20-25-year veterans for whom eBay is irreplaceable: they check it first before any purchase, trust it with cards and collections, and say life without it would be poorer. It's a familiar, convenient tool that "just works" for them.
In 2026, losing eBay would be like losing a limb, a valuable one.
Always look on e Bay first to buy. A reputable trusted app. Very easy to use.
been using eBay for 20+ years. I love it.
What users hate
Applying a search filter hangs the app forever on "Searching"
The single most common complaint: the moment you add or change a search filter, the screen freezes on "Searching" with a blank page and never loads. Reinstalling, clearing cache and restarting do nothing, and people miss auctions because of it.
keeps freezing when you do a search and add a filter. it might be fine for the first filter but then if you try to change it or add another it stays at searching and never loads
if I filter based on item condition the app bricks and becomes totally unusable
Currently unable to filter my searches, just left with the "Searching" message and nothing loads. Cleared cache and restarted the app, still running into issues.
Forced Live shopping turns the feed into "TikTok for scalpers"
eBay Live has taken over the home screen and search with autoplaying videos that can't be turned off. Users call it trashy slop, "OnlyFans for Pokemon scammers", and overwhelmingly demand an off switch — otherwise they bail to the website or to competitors.
Used to be useful now my homepage is clogged with live selling and it's become unusable. Give me an option to turn this off
eBay live is gross and just shows eBay is not looking out for anyone, it turned a pretty app into auto playing AI video garbage.
eBay looks like OnlyFans for Pokemon scammers and people with personality disorders. please make an option to hide this slop
Fees swallow nearly half of the seller's payout
Sellers are stunned by the cut: a $76 sale nets $62, a $40 sale nets $6.75, on top of a new Buyer Protection fee, paid "promotion", and inflated eBay shipping. The "free to sell" ads feel like a lie, pushing people to Vinted, Mercari and Marketplace.
I made a sale of 76.00 and I'm only getting $62 back without promotion I am getting taxed way too much
I sold an item for &40 and I get back $ 6.75
Ebay is making so much more money with these new Buyer Protection fees.... they take almost £10 every order. Going full time on Vinted from now on.
AI is force-fed into both listing and support
Listings now must go through an AI assistant with no off switch — it misreads the item and writes nonsense you have to erase and retype. Support has collapsed into a chatbot that loops endlessly and offers no path to a real human.
now the only way to post is Ai. they force the Ai tool on you and theres no way to turn it off.
eBay forces you to use their buggy "Ai" assistant now to create listings "for you", which in reality translates to you having to erase everything the Ai writes and type it in yourself.
the chatbot is on a loop and has no available options to talk to a human being.
A login loop: "Invalid access token" logs you out and won't let you back
After updates the app randomly logs people out and on sign-in throws "Invalid access token. Check the value of the Authorisation HTTP request header", demanding a full data wipe or password reset. Sellers miss messages and sales because of it.
Keep getting logged out randomly and when trying to log in again, it says "Invalid access token. Check the value of the Authorisation HTTP request header."
enter my fingerprint, ot fails to sign me in with a note saying "Invalid access token, check the value of the Authorization HTTP request header"
forces you to sign in and won't accept the correct credentials - making the app unusable
Seller funds are held for a week-plus after delivery
eBay holds payouts even after a completed, delivered sale, demanding driver's license, birth certificate and other documents. People report going weeks "not paid for anything" with funds blocked and no explanation.
I have been selling on here for weeks and they have not paid me for anything
Holds payments of sales for more than a week after delivery.
now they dosent release money after transaction was done perfect if I don't upload my drive license, birth certificate, etc .
Buyer and seller protection doesn't actually work against scams
Both buyers and sellers describe AI closing their cases with absurd verdicts, the money-back guarantee turning out to be "a marketing trick", and used-item returns screwing the seller. The reviews are full of "AVOID" and talk of a class-action lawsuit.
The automated customer service is total rubish and the money back guarantee is just a marketing trick.
my items never arrived, and there's no human customer service. ai decided my case was closed, and I'm out $400.00.
allows buyers to buy and use item and return it with no recourse. seller is screwed every time.
Spam notifications and emails that can't be switched off
Push alerts about eBay Live arrive hourly, sometimes twice an hour, plus 14 emails per single purchase and notifications at 12:20 a.m. There's no setting to stop them, so the only fix is banning notifications entirely — which kills real sale alerts too.
The in app notifications are ridiculous. Every hour, sometimes twice an hour there are eBay live notifications.
14 EMAILS FOR 1 PURCHASE ??? This is getting out of hand now ffs
Now please never send me another notification at twenty past midnight again. That'll make a guy uninstall the app.
Last-second auction sniping: shown as top bidder, then outbid
eBay's beloved auction feature is undermined: the app shows you as top bidder the whole countdown, then in the last 2 seconds you're outbid with no chance to respond and no losing notification. Users ask for a clock reset like eBay Live already has.
you have the highest bid the entire time and then with 2 seconds you get outbid with no chance
the auction I was bidding on was telling me that I was top bidder throughout the entire last 5 minute countdown. then the second bidding ended (still showing that I was the top bidder)
the clock resets to 9 seconds, so we would all get a 2nd chance too bid!
Inflated, inflexible shipping through eBay's forced postage system
The new system forces you to buy postage only through eBay — pricier, less flexible, with no option to ship it yourself. The weight auto-estimate is wrong and real shipping costs spike so badly sellers lose money: a $53 grill costing $83 to ship.
The new postage system forces you to buy postage via ebay meaning it is more expensive, less flexible
she sold a lil camping grill for $53, cost $83 just to ship it... WITHIN IN COUNTRY!!
there auto estimates for shipping dosnt work
General instability: crashes, "network error" and lag
Beyond search, the app falls over generally: constant "network error" and "server unavailable", white screens, freezes, slow loading and crashes after weekly updates. Some users report it suddenly became incompatible with their device entirely.
constantly crashing or "network error". Who in IT is vibe coding this?
server unavailable constantly. not usable anymore
crashes alot and very slow some searches the app gets confused